Leora
Dorie! Dorie! Dorie!
I rushed to the bottom of the fancy hotel in a blind panic only to skid to a stop when the scene in the lobby came into sharp focus.
Dorie hadn’t run away into the streets of Edinburgh as I feared.
However, her feet were dangling in the air, at least a meter off the ground.
Because she was safe.
In Alban’s arms.
Alban … Alban was here, and he had lifted her off the floor into the tightest hug.
“Must be his daughter,” I heard a middle-aged hotel guest say to her husband as they passed.
“My own da greeted me the exact same way whenever we were apart too long. Like he hadn’t seen me in over a century, and you should’ve seen the way that man cried when I went off to university.
Oh, I do miss him. I should give him a ring—let him know I’m thinking about him. ”
Yes, you should, I wanted to tell the lady. Everyone should take every opportunity they had to tell the people they love how much they appreciated them while they still had a chance.
Only a few hours—not centuries—had passed since Alban and Dorie last laid eyes on each other. But the hotel guest was right, I thought as I walked towards them.
Here was Dorie’s real father. Not the male I’d left upstairs.
“I knew you’d come! I knew it even before I saw you from the hotel window!” I overheard Dorie saying as I drew closer. “Thank you, Alban.”
“Not Alban. Call me Da like you asked,” Alban answered, gripping her tight in his arms. “Of course, you can call me that, darling Dorie. I was only so surprised by the question I couldnae answer right away at first.”
“He was gobsmacked and couldnae believe somebody as wonderful as yerself would want him as a father,” Hamish explained.
Hamish … Hamish was also here! The old male, who’d bragged to me about not having visited one place outside of Faoiltiarn since his time in the military, stepped forward to rub Dorie’s back.
His words were meant to be soothing, but Dorie only ended up crying into Alban’s shoulder. “I was so afraid! He said he was going to take us back to Saint Albert and make us pretend my brother was his son. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
Tears threatened to spill from my eyes, too. I understood exactly how Dorie felt. Just the thought of Joshua’s plan playing out had filled me with despair. And I’d gone hours thinking that tense conversation from this morning would be the last I’d ever have with Alban.
But here he was, telling Dorie, “Of course, I came. I’m yer da—not that coward. I’ll never not come for ye. This I vow on my life. There’s no dungeon that can contain me when it comes to your safety. Doesnae matter what yer mother says.”
His tone turned bitter on the last sentence, and I couldn’t say I blamed him. I’d put both him and Dorie in a terrible position.
I stopped short, just a short distance away from them. I was so happy to see Alban again. Yet so paralyzed with shame. I couldn’t move any closer or alert them of my presence.
But then I didn’t have to.
Alban saw me, and the most terrible look came over his face. Rage. Pure, unadulterated rage.
He put Dorie down and came charging toward me.
I looked from side to side. Unable to move, even though some primal, life-preserving urge was telling me to flee.
But I couldn’t run. I wouldn’t run.
Whatever he did—whatever he had to say to me, I deserved it. I wouldn’t forgive myself, and I couldn’t blame him if he was never able to forgive me either.
“It means my love,” he said, coming to an abrupt stop in front of me.
I blinked. “What?”
“Ye asked me what mo ghràidh meant.” Alban cupped my face in his large hands and bent down so that we were at eye level.
“It means my love. I love ye, Leora. I cannae be without ye. Even if you have my cousin put me in a dungeon and try to run. You’re my mate.
For life—no matter who else tries to claim ye. My one and only love.”
“Oh, Alban.” The tears I’d been resolutely holding back ever since Joshua showed up at my door flooded my eyes.
Oh, my goodness …
This morning when I was alone with him, I’d thought it way too early to tell Alban how I felt. But tonight, in this lobby full of humans, the words came spilling out: “I love you too! So much, I could barely stand this. I was just trying to fix things for Dorie. That’s the only reason I—”
“You dinnae need to explain yourself to me.” Before I could finish, he kissed me in front of Dorie, Hamish, and everyone else in the lobby, making my head spin with love and regret.
“I’m here now,” he told me, folding me into his chest for a hug as tight as the one he gave Dorie. “And that’s all that matters.”
“Yes, that’s all that matters,” Dorie said, throwing her hands around both of our waists from the side.
Oh, how I wished that were true. I cried against Alban’s chest. For the pain I caused and for the family we might have been if Joshua hadn’t come back.
“I’m so sorry!” I told both of them from the bottom of my heart. “I’m so sorry.”
Alban and Dorie didn’t get it. They just continued to hug me tight.
But Hamish did.
He came closer. Not to jump in on the family hug, but to ask. “What’s with the handset, then, Leora?”
I pulled away from Alban and Dorie.
The handset …
I’d forgotten that I was still gripping it tight—that I’d been cold-blooded enough to disconnect it in the first place.
I looked down at the damning evidence in my hand and tried to form words to explain.
But in the end, I didn’t have to.
“So, you used the Last Resort after all?” Hamish guessed, his face grim.
After Alban left for Ireland, Hamish and Dorie decided amongst themselves that we’d be staying at the town house—not the castle. The morning after their big decision, Hamish pulled me aside and pressed a vial of clear liquid into my hand.
“Just in case the Irish come back again,” he told me.
“I’ve no plans to let them take you. But if the Irish drag you out of here over my dead body, here’s something they gave us to use on enemy shifters back when I was in Wolf Force before retiring it for being too inhumane.
It’s called The Last Resort. A mix of wolfsbane, mistletoe, and a whole bunch of chemical nonsense we dinnae even have names for yet that the military scientists created in their labs.
Not the prettiest death, I’ll warn ye, and it takes a lot longer than it would in one of those James Bond films. But it will give ye enough time to make yer escape. ”
I’d shrunk back from the vial in horror.
“I’m a pacifist. I’ll never use such a thing on another living being—no matter what kind of threat he poses.”
Hamish had backed down. But a couple of days later, I’d found the vial sitting on top of my dresser with a note written in Hamish’s scratchy handwriting: Just in case
Of course, I hadn’t used it.
I stowed it away with the rest of my things before Dorie could see it with a vague plan to figure out the best way to get rid of the vial without accidentally poisoning the town’s water source or any animals or plants in the back garden.
But in all the drama that followed, I somehow forgot about the little vial … until Joshua gave us just a few minutes to gather all of our things.
I’d told Hamish I would never use his Last Resort. But a few hours later, I walked back into the hotel suite with Alban to find Joshua just a couple of meters from where I left him—but lying on the floor.
Hamish had been right about the death not being pretty or quick. There was blood seeping from Joshua’s mouth, nose, eyes, and ears—and probably some other orifices I couldn’t see.
But he was technically still alive, and he was pulling himself along the carpet in an excruciatingly slow belly crawl with one arm extended toward the front room’s other phone.
I hadn’t disconnected the handset from that one, and it lay only half a meter away. but judging from this slow progress, Joshua wouldn’t make it before the poison finished its work.
Alban closed the door behind us and stared down at the scene, his expression as grim as Hamish’s downstairs. Then, he did that thing where he didn’t just close off his side of the mate bond, he turned it completely to silent. Leaving me alone on my side of it. And completely bereft.
I didn’t regret the decision I’d made. Not even for a second. But everything was ruined now. We’d never be a happy family. Guilt roiled my stomach.
“I had to poison him,” I whispered to Alban. “I couldn’t figure out how else to free Dorie without getting you in trouble, too.”
Alban shook his head. “Nae, this is on me. They put me in that cage, and ye let them leave me there because they ken I wouldnae be able to control my temper. I should’ve explained things to you better—made sure you understood that the worrying is my job.
Not yours. Not anymore. No matter what. I should’ve kept it together for you—not made you so scared you couldnae trust me to do my job. ”
“You’re such a sweet, wonderful male. But this …” My chest hitched. “This right here is why I had to do it this way. I couldn’t bear seeing you hauled off to the dungeon like Evan. But I couldn’t let Joshua take Dorie either.”
Alban frowned down at me. “What were you expecting to do after this, then?”
Good question. With such high stakes and so little time to come up with anything, my plan had been imperfect, verging on completely shoddy.
“I was going to use the money Tara gave me to take a taxi back to Faoiltiarn. Then I was going to take a bus to get as close to your cabin as I could get. The plan was to hide out at your cabin until the baby came. Actually, that was as far as I got. But now you and Hamish are here, and you won’t be able to say you knew nothing about Joshua dying when the police come looking for me … ”
Joshua groaned and coughed up more blood on the floor, drawing our attention back to the terrible thing I’d done. And leaving even more evidence behind of my crime for the human authorities to find.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry everything is ruined, and we can’t be a happy family.”
Alban gritted his jaw underneath his big beard.
“I’m sorry too,” he told me, his gruff voice filled with regret. “I’m sorry you thought you had to make this decision all on yer own. I’m going to work on communicating better with ye in the future. No more misunderstandings.”
He still thought we had a future together?
“Oh, Alban …” Didn’t he understand? “I killed someone. In a hotel. The police will be called. That means I’ll have to confess so that they don’t come after you or—”
My throat clogged with more tears, and my chest filled with pain, thinking of all the terrible ways the consequences of my actions could play out.
But then I noticed the strained expression on Alban’s face.
“Are you …” I took in his crinkled eyes and clamped lips. “Are you trying not to laugh?”
“I’m sorry!” he answered, losing his fight with a barking chortle. “It’s just … my poor, innocent, and extremely na?ve wife. Look at how yer suffering even a moment of regret over this tadger who deserved everything he got.”
I shook my head at him. “This is serious!”
“I know it is,” he said, regaining his composure.
“And I’m sorry, too,” he told me, his voice solemn and grave. But then he added, “Sorry you only left a wee bit of life in him. I wanted to take it all.”
I blinked, confused.
That mad gleam was back in Alban’s eyes. But his voice remained light and perfectly calm as he said, “Go back down to the lobby with Hamish and Dorie. I’ll join you there after I call a couple of people to give me a hand with the clean-up.”
“The clean-up?” I repeated. “But—”
“You’re not going to jail. And you didn’t ruin anything,” he insisted before I could finish my protest. “You cleared the last obstacle—officially made us a family.”
He clasped the back of my neck and pulled me into his chest. “I love you, and I’m full of pride for my mate.”
A million more questions rose inside my head, only to fizzle away under the weight of his kiss. And though his side of the bond remained completely muted, I somehow went from protesting to just knowing.
Knowing who this mate of mine really was. He was the male who had served his country at great personal cost. He was the male who’d completed my cycle and made me the happiest she-wolf on Earth. He was the male who’d only hesitated for a moment before agreeing to become Dorie’s forever father.
He wasn’t just a Scottish wolf. He was my Scottish wolf. My Scottish Hero.
I didn’t need an open mate bond to clear up my confusion. He was here now, which meant I didn’t have to worry anymore. He would take care of all of it.
As if to confirm my conclusion, he let me out of the kiss and gave me a little nudge toward the door, “Now, let me take care of this, so we can all go home.”
Yes, home.
Home with Alban and the rest of our made family was the only place on Earth I wanted to be. Now and forever.”
No more protesting. No more trying to protect Dorie all by myself. I headed for the door.
The last thing I saw before I closed it was Alban picking up my barely alive “Benefactor” from the carpeted floor.
“You left before I was done talking,” he let Joshua know. “Now, it’s time to finish our conversation.”